Why and how are employers increasingly using workplace monitoring?
Workplace monitoring is one of the trends in 2022. It helps companies increase productivity, save money on unproductive activities, and make informed decisions. For employees, this is an opportunity to feel safe and know that the employer will notice and pay for their efforts.
In this article, we will look at why employers use workplace monitoring and what results they expect to get.
Employers want to cut unproductive expenses
Employers are increasingly using workplace monitoring software to track employees’ time and performance. The program is convenient to use for hourly payments. The employer sees how much the employee actually works and pays for the hours worked.
Employers seek to achieve good results by reducing unproductive work. In addition, they want to know if their employees are working hard or if they are lazy.
The disadvantage is that the team may perceive the program for monitoring working hours as a way of total surveillance. Which can make you feel uncomfortable or even offended by the manager. In this case, the company’s task is to explain to the employees why the monitoring of working time is introduced in the team, and what benefits will be gained by both parties.
Employers want to better understand employees
With the help of working time monitoring, companies understand what difficulties specialists face in their work. Some tasks may take longer than expected. And as a result, all deadlines are violated.
It is not rare that an employee is most productive at certain times of the day, such as in the morning. And he should adjust his work schedule to increase productivity.
The issue of professional burnout, fatigue or lack of knowledge in a certain field of activity is not the last on the list of questions from business managers and owners. Regular overtime work of a specialist may indicate that he needs additional training, and at least advice on specific issues.
Overtime will eventually lead to burnout of the team members. You just have to notice the overtime trend in the time monitoring reports. And then it is more likely that a valuable employee will not leave your company.
Job monitoring helps companies make better decisions
Remote work trends show that workers are increasingly opting for workday flexibility over the standard 9-to-6 schedule. This flexibility can be achieved with the help of time tracking software. You will always know how much time team members actually work remotely, how productive their day is, what resources they use at work, and what data they have access to. This will allow you to allow employees to work flexibly without losing anything in terms of performance and profit for the company.
It is not easy for managers to make decisions regarding the firing or hiring of new employees. You can always explain your actions with the help of objective reports from the time tracking program. If an employee cannot cope with the amount of work that they were given, a possible solution is to add another specialist to the team. Or change the tactics of performing work tasks, if possible.
It happens that companies use monitoring to find out that team members use up to 40% of their working time unproductively. Before firing, it is worth finding out the reason for such indicators, and then making informed decisions regarding this employee.
Employees want to be more productive
Less distraction and doing more in the same time span — one of the trends in 2022. The modern generation is increasingly feeling tired when the work-life balance is disturbed. With the help of a program for monitoring working hours, employers give the opportunity to independently control the time spent on social networks, Youtube, news portals. And thus affect your level of productivity.
It is worth mentioning the additional features of the program that help the employee to concentrate. For example, the Focus Mode extension makes it possible to focus when trying to switch to social networks or other unproductive resources: the program will politely remind you of the goal of not being distracted during the specified time period. Therefore, the specialists will again return to the task they were working on.
Employees want more flexibility about when and how they work
Gartner predicts that by the end of 2024, the number of remote workers will be 60% of the total. That is 8% more than it was in 2020.
Research also shows that a hybrid work model increases employee productivity and promotes better teamwork.
In order to allow employees to freely migrate between the office, coworking, home, and at the same time manage to complete their tasks, business managers or business founders decide to implement a time tracking system. The program can be easily installed both on a working computer in the office and on an employee’s personal device. For one side, this approach is an opportunity to feel more flexible about where and when to work. For another, it is the ability to see that the team is doing its job, even when no one is standing over their head.
Conclusion
Work time monitoring software is very popular these days. It gives employers a huge advantage by helping them save money on unproductive activities, better understand employees and make informed business decisions.
But, as in any other business, it is important to customize all processes to the needs of your company. Before you start monitoring working time, it is important for you to answer the following questions:
- Why do we want to implement working time monitoring?
- What problems are we trying to solve with time monitoring?
- What strategies will we use to achieve these goals?
Be sure to include timelines, resources, and a schedule for implementing the various strategies. Finally, sit down with other managers, employees, and stakeholders in your company and present them with a time monitoring plan. This way you can get feedback from your team and make the necessary adjustments.
If you have any doubts about the strategy for implementing a program for monitoring working hours, you can contact a specialist from the developer company for advice.